Is your bathroom out of control? What you can do to regain control

During my normal work day I encounter hard to clean bathrooms. Most home owners feel embarrassed about the state of their bathrooms, however there are cheap things that you can do to improve the look of your bathroom without remodeling. I am professional cleaner so I can give you a few insider tips on solving bathroom headaches, you just have to be willing to spend the time on it.

The things that you will need are:

• A scotch brite sponge (about $0.89) or cheaper version
• Scrubbing Bubbles or cheaper version (aerosol cans are the best)
• Clorox clean up spray or any mildew treatment spray with bleach
• sprayaway glass cleaner (best out there and it is usually under $3.50)
• a pumice stone (you can use the cheap ones they sell at the dollar store for your feet)
• Toilet bowl cleaner
• Magic Eraser (optional)
• Cobwebber

Start by cob-webbing, even if you don't see any it doesn't mean they aren't there. Hit the whole top perimeter with the cobwebber and make sure you cob-web the light fixtures. Once you have finished cob-webbing, spray your bathroom mirrors and inside of the medicine cabinet with the glass cleaner. Spray down all of your fixtures, vanity and sink, tub, and toilet with scrubbing bubbles. Apply toilet bowl cleaner to the inside of the toilet.

Now go back to your mirrors with a clean dry rag and wipe the mirrors clean. You can use the same rag to wipe the inside of the medicine cabinet and all of it's interior parts clean. On to your bathroom sink...do you have any rust stains or green stains on your sink? You don't have to waste your money on CRL or Limeaway... just take the toilet bowl cleaner and apply it directly to areas of discoloration and allow it a minute or so to work in. After a minute has passed, take the green scrubby part of your sponge and start using a little elbow grease to make the stains slowly fade to nothing but a memory. Now rinse your sponge and scrub the rest of the sink and counter top. Use a clean rag to wipe the surface clean and dry. Before you leave this area, kneel down and spray the front of the vanity cabinets with scrubbing bubbles.

Sometimes Showers are the hardest part of the bathroom to clean due to lime stains, rust stains, calcium buildup, mildew, mold, and hard water stains. I have a few tricks that I use to help homeowners regain control of their shower. Now if the shower you are trying to clean has a lot of mold or mildew, then you need to start the shower by spraying the side walls down with Clorox clean-up. If your shower has hard water stains, just use scrubbing bubbles. Usually the rust, lime and calcium deposits will be in the tub part of the shower so we will get to that in a minute.

Now take the green scrubby sponge, scrub in small circles putting your muscles into it. I often think of the "karate kid" where he is learning the wax on wax off pattern. Hard water stains take a lot of time but they do come off. You'll know that you are effectively removing them because it will start to smell like rotten eggs and the surface will become smooth. For mildew you will have to really concentrate your energy in one area. Scrub the mildew as effectively as you can, in some cases the mildew will be growing from inside the caulk. In these cases you will have to strip the caulk out then scrub the source of the mildew with bleach until it is clean, and you should let it dry thoroughly before re-caulking the shower. Once you have gotten all of the shower walls clean then you should use soft scrub on the magic eraser and wipe down the shower walls ensuring that you have removed all of the blemishes from your shower. Take a couple cups of water and rinse down the walls of the shower, use a clean dry rag to wipe the shower clean.

Now you can start on the tub part of your shower. Take the toilet bowl cleaner and apply directly to the areas with lime and rust stains, let it sit for a minute. Next take that green scrubby sponge and work at the areas. Once those unsightly areas are clean, you can use the scrubbing bubbles and spray and wipe clean the rest of the tub. Or you can use the magic eraser and soft scrub method for a dazzling clean.

Some toilets when I walk into a home, are a little surprising and others are down right horrifying. Once you get to the toilet you will need to apply more toilet bowl cleaner to the inside of the bowl. Take your toilet bowl brush and scrub the bowl. If your toilet has the black build up around the top of the bowl and at the water line then you should pull out the pumice stone. The dollar store foot pumice stones work just fine for this purpose. Now scrub the black out by pushing firmly as you scrub at the toilet. This might take five to ten minutes but the inside of your toilet will look new.

Now spray the outside of the toilet with which ever cleaner that you like and wipe clean with a clean dry rag.

I prefer to use the Clorox clean-up on the floor to whiten the grout. If you notice any spots of your wall you can use the magic eraser on the spots to make them a thing of the past. Using these methods you should have your bathroom looking new in under two hours.